The present invention relates to article surveillance and more particularly to an arrangement for temporarily securing to a flat surface of an article to be maintained under surveillance a lamelliform component which is detectable by a surveillance device.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,229 of John Welsh et al. issued Dec. 13, 1977 for "Article Surveillance" there is described an electronic theft detection and surveillance system wherein sensor-emitter labels or tags containing a two-terminal nonlinear capacitor, e.g., a semiconductor diode, directly connected to antenna means are applied to articles for purpose of surveillance. As disclosed therein the tag may take various forms, one of which is a thin narrow rectangle. Several embodiments of transmitter and receiver are disclosed for cooperation with the tag.
A somewhat different detecting system for use with a thin rectangular tag containing a semi-conductor rectifier chip connected to dipole antenna elements is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,895,368 of Lloyd L. Gordon et al., issued July 15, 1975 for "Surveillance System and Method Utilizing Both Electrostatic and Electromagnetic Fields". Both of the above mentioned patents are assigned to the same assignee as the present invention and deal with the details of construction of the tag and the equipment for detecting its presence within a controlled space.
Depending upon the nature of the articles to be maintained under surveillance, there are different problems that must be surmounted in securing a sensor-emitter tag thereto. For theft protection of soft goods such as clothing or the like in retail stores, the tags may be affixed to the garments or other soft merchandise by an enclosure of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,829 of David Raymond Humble et al., issued Mar. 9, 1976 for "Reusable Security Tag", and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. The detectable tag, rectangular and lamelliform, is sealed within a plastic enclosure which also contains a cruciate sheet metal clutch lock. A pin for piercing a garment is secured at the end of a lever arm which is hinged to said enclosure for controlled movement into said clutch lock. The pin is released from said clutch lock by application of a special tool to said enclosure for deforming the clutch lock to spread its jaws. The enclosure is made from a reasonably hard plastic and is intended to withstand substantial physical abuse.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,240 of David R. Humble, issued Jan. 20, 1976 and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is described apparatus for preventing the unauthorized removal of an article such as a tape cassette from a protected area comprising a container which has a main opening for receiving the article and at least two spaced key openings. The container is made of rigid plastic and carries an electromagnetic reradiator of the type mentioned previously and includes article retaining means having a first position clear of the main opening and a second position blocking the opening. An article release device at the point of sale includes at least two spaced keys which are simultaneously advanceable into the key openings for shifting the retaining means from the second position to the first position.
While the above patents describe various arrangements for securing a detectable component to certain articles of merchandise, there are certain articles for which no fully satisfactory method exists for afffixing the tags thereto. For example, while U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,240 describes apparatus for securing tags to recording cassettes, it does not furnish means for affixing such tags to the jackets and albums containing disc recordings or other flat surfaced objects that are too large to enclose within a separate security enclosure. Obviously such articles also are not amenable to affixing a tag thereto by means of the device described in the aforesaid U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,829.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a practical, convenient and efficacious arrangement for affixing a lamelliform security tag to flat surfaces such as the side of a record jacket or album or a carton or the like. Another object of the invention is to provide such an arrangement while rendering the security tag difficult to remove by a shoplifter but easily removable by an authorized individual.